Appellate decision paves way for Peabody plant

Monday

Aug 27, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 27, 2007 at 12:15 PM

Peabody Energy Co. expects to have about 2,000 construction workers on the job by this time in 2009 after a federal court upheld company plans for a $2.9 billion power plant and energy campus in southern Illinois.

Tim Landis

Peabody Energy Co. expects to have about 2,000 construction workers on the job by this time in 2009 after a federal court upheld company plans for a $2.9 billion power plant and energy campus in southern Illinois.

Environmental groups are considering an appeal, however, claiming the decision has not resolved the issue of emissions, including pollutants linked to global warming.

An early October groundbreaking is planned for the Prairie State Energy Campus — a combination 1,600-megawatt power plant and coal mine near Marissa — that would provide electricity throughout the Midwest.

“This is a terrific milestone,” Peabody spokeswoman Beth Sutton said Monday of the court decision.

The company contends the new plant’s technology would meet state and federal air-quality standards by significantly reducing emissions, including carbon dioxide, compared to traditional coal-fired plants. Sutton said hiring for construction would begin this fall and should total 2,000 in the second half of 2009. The plant is expected to create 450 permanent jobs.

A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals late last week unanimously upheld Illinois Environmental Protection Agency approval of an air-quality permit for the plant just southeast of St. Louis. The court concluded the plant would use the “best available control technology” for a facility designed to burn high-sulfur coal from an on-site mine, and that the plant would not appreciably increase pollutants based on existing environmental standards.

The judges also rejected the opponents’ argument that the plant could be required to use cleaner-burning Western coal rather than high-sulfur Illinois coal without making major changes in design and technology.

“To burn low-sulfur coal, Prairie State would have to arrange for it to be transported from mines more than a thousand miles away and would have to make changes in the design of the plant — specifically, the design of the plant’s facilities for receiving coal,” the opponents maintained.

Supporters argue the plant will use the latest in clean-coal technology to help revive an industry that has been in a more-than-decade-long slump because of the links between high-sulfur coal and pollution.

“We simply disagree. Most of the large power plants in Illinois have switched to Western coal,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the National Coal Campaign for the Sierra Club and one of two attorneys for the appeal.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association, contend state and federal environmental regulators already have sufficient authority to require stricter emissions limits, including of carbon dioxide, which is tied to global warming.

“We believe it is one of the major deficits that this plant will put 12 million tons of carbon dioxide in the air. The (state) EPA never considered what they could do to minimize those emissions,” said Nilles.

While there are no specific state or federal limits on CO2 emissions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled early this year it should be treated as a pollutant.

The Sierra Club has held up an agreement with City Water, Light and Power of Springfield, which is building a half-billion-dollar plant of its own, as an example of coal-fired generation that protects the environment. As part of the settlement, CWLP agreed to wind-power purchases, more efficient technology and to encourage more customer conservation.

“Here’s the world’s largest (private) coal company, and it says it can’t do as good as the city of Springfield,” Nilles said.

Nilles said the group has not yet decided whether to ask for a hearing before all the 7th Circuit judges or to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Sierra Club appealed to the 7th Circuit after the Illinois Pollution Control Board upheld the original air-quality permit.

The initial phase of construction at the Prairie State Energy Campus is expected to take four years, with the first generation unit going online in 2011 and the second in 2012.